Under antitrust law, government officials must act within 30 days if they want to challenge a deal before it closes. That time period will keep running even if the government closes down.

This raised the specter that some anti-competitive deals could accidentally slip past antitrust regulators if a shutdown became lengthy. Keeping the antitrust regulators up and running will prevent that outcome.

Many deals might be put on hold, however.

“If you’re a company that regularly does deals that need regulatory approval, you’re probably going to hold off during a shutdown. You don’t want the regulators feeling like you jammed them up while they were short staffed,” one New York based antitrust lawyer told me.